Posts Tagged ‘Philip Zimbardo’

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo is an in depth study of mankind’s capacity for evil, beginning with the complete treatise on the Stanford Prison Experiment, taking us through numerous similar studies on obedience and the corrupting influence of authority, and ending with the atrocities committed by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib. But as I was reading, I kept thinking of Ron Paul and the ongoing controversy between the libertarians and anarchists as to whether supporting his campaign is the right thing to do. I think this book has settled the issue for me, as I’ll explain as we go on. Although I started with the paperback, I really can’t sing the praises of the audiobook enough. A significant portion is actual transcripts from the experiment, and the narrator, Kevin Foley is a skilled voice actor that turns the book into a radio play with different voices for each character.